Prof Dr Jikun Huang is Director at China Centre for Agriculture Policy (CCAP), and a Professor at Peking University, China and at Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resource Research, Beijing, China. Dr Mubarak Ali, former Member - Food Security and Climate Change, Planning Commission chaired the session. The representatives of ACIAR were also present on the occasion. Dr Jikun enlightened the participants about the pathways, policy sequencing and development outcomes of inclusive rural structural transformation in emerging economies of Asia over the period of 1980 to 2015, said a press release.
Prof Jikun underscored the importance and process of rural transformation in Asia and highlighted that on demand side it is contingent on demographic change & urbanization, income growth, preference change, food diversification, food security, demand for biofuels and ecological services that will be attained through addressing the issues like sustainability of land/water/climate, decreasing farm size, rising wages, aging & feminization. By political commitment through articulating innovated institutional reforms, policies & investment, market integration, competitive changes in procurement & retail processing impact on globalization of commerce. He briefed that agricultural structural changes response in major crops of Asian countries (maize, wheat, rice & other grains) accounts 74% value share vs livestock 26% value share of total production since 1961 to 2013.
The participants were apprised that the share of non-cereal products differ largely among different countries over the last 30 years - rapid transformation was achieved in countries like China, Indonesia, Laos and Vietnam, whereas moderate transformation was achieved in the rest of Asian developing countries including Pakistan. He also elicited that off farm employment has increased significantly in China from 15% (1980) to 60% (2015), whereas in India it rose from 19% (1983) to 32% (2010).
He further explained four key stages of rural transformation, these are; (i) staple food production, (ii) agriculture diversification, (iii) rising non-farm employment and (iv) Integrated urban-rural sustainable development. At regional level, South Asia attained stage 3 lower level; Southeast Asia attained higher level of stage 3; whereas China attained stage 4 of rural transformations. According to Prof Dr Jikun Huang, the major drivers of agriculture growth are institutional transformation, innovative policies in agriculture market reforms, technology and inputs as well as investment in agriculture. He stated that China achieved rural transformation through; Institutional Change (land reforms 1978-1984), Technology Innovation (mid 1980s), Market Reforms (late 1980); and Investment in Agriculture portfolio (1990).
He called attention to the speed of agriculture transformation measured in production structure has important implications of dependency function on farmers' income and rural poverty reduction. In Asia particularly, the slow agriculture transformation achieved among countries like Pakistan, Philippine and Cambodia is due to slow rural poverty reduction, whereas moderate agriculture transformation achieved by countries like Laos, India, and Bangladesh with moderate rural poverty reduction. However fast agriculture transformation achieved by countries like China and Vietnam due to their rapidly reduce rural poverty reduction among Asian developing economies. He also quoted that Structural Transformation (ST) including urbanization and rural transformation (RT) are interconnected; successful RT can stimulate economic growth and ST; secondly ST can enhance rural transformation through labor-intensive industrialization. Fostering RT could improve food security, increase farmer income, reduce rural poverty and facilitate sustainable rural development.
Prof Dr Jikun Huang concluded that Country/regional differences on food security, farmer's income, rural poverty and sustainability could be largely attained by any economy though following pathway and speed of regional transformation stages. In addition, appropriate Institution, Policy and Investment (IPI) matters need attention to speed up the inclusive and sustainable rural transformation.
While concluding the session, Dr Mubarak Ali appreciated Prof Dr Jikun Huang on delivering the comprehensive presentation and expressed that Pakistan may follow the Chinese model of rural transformation to achieve food security, improve farmer's income, reduce rural poverty and attain sustainability because China accomplished the process of rural transformation in a very short period of time and the circumstances of Pakistan are very much similar to those of China at the time when Chinese started the process of rural transformation.-PR
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017